The popular participation is one of the main pillars of the local development process,
as it allows the opportunity for various community groups to contribute to the preparation,
management and implementation of development plans in line with their
needs and
aspirations, and it has a positive role in making success of development projects in a
sustainable manner, so as to ensure the achievement of the comprehensive national
development objectives. A real and effective participation requires adoption of sustainable
enablement principle to build the public capacity, and to devote the human potential and
efforts of local communities.
In this context, the research presents a study of the concept of popular participation
and its importance in local development, and it identifies the methods and levels of
participation in the development process, its conditions, requirements and principles, as
classifies levels and forms of popular participation during the phases of local development;
in addition to presenting challenges of the participation in the local development processes.
The research deals with an analysis of one of global experiences that applies sustainable
enablement principle, to enhance the contribution of the community in achieving
sustainable development of the local urban environment, in order to conclude the most
important phases and criteria for sustainable enablement.
The research concludes to a number of conclusions and recommendations aspires to
promote the important role of public participation in local development, by creating
mechanisms which could be used to activate participation at the level of
local administrative units, and exploring the practical application way for enabling
communities in all stages of the local development process, in order to provide different
domains for popular participation in most important development issues.
The public participation is one of the most important tools for sustainable urban development to prepare more appropriate master plans, but at the same time it forms a challenge to those concerned in terms of finding an appropriate mechanism and mode
l to be activated according to the characteristics and requirements of the cities and the needs of their residents.
The research began from establish the theoretical base of the community participation process to know the concept of it forms impediments in the preparation of urban development plans and to depend after that on study the experiences of different countries globally and locally about active the participation as a reference tool for the preparation of master plans for it's cities and evaluated them to utilize in line with the reality of Lattakia, then do the analytical study of the reality of participation in the city, through the use of the questionnaire to determine it's importance to population and and the extent of their participation in the preparation of master plans of the city and acceptability of it to preparation the plans for their city and determine their favorite mechanism, to research concludes to Suggestion the appropriate Participatory model to the local conditions of lattakia city to be public participation more effective with a mechanism of action in direct contact with the population and reflects their views and aspirations.
